The Story of Mzazi Willy M. Tuva and the Birth of Mambo Mseto 

Mzazi Willy M. Tuva had the concept of Mambo Mseto long before anyone gave him the chance to test it. 

He drew up written proposals and knocked on the doors of station after station. Receptionists gave him appointments and told him to come back the next day. He came back, and got the same answer. 

At the time, Kenyan artists like Nameless and Redsan were releasing great music, but mainstream radio was not giving them enough airtime. Tuva envisioned a show that would run on homegrown Kenyan music first, with talent from across East Africa filling the rest of the slot. 

The Beginning

Tuva was born and raised in Lamu, on Kenya's coast, with a twin brother who made a single appearance on Mseto East Africa in 2015 before disappearing. Their father worked as a District Education Officer in Makueni, and supported Tuva's art talent by buying him sketchbooks. 

In class seven, a teacher noticed Tuva's interest in art and started a school journalism club around him, pinning his drawings and write-ups to the notice board. This was a motivation that would carry him into adulthood. 

He drew the "Katumbilikimo" strip for Taifa Leo and sold sketches as a side income before he ever sat behind a microphone.

The Road to Media

Tuva attended Mukaa Boys, then enrolled at the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication to study investigative journalism. 

In his second year at KIMC, KBC opened auditions for a radio presenter. Tuva made it through every round to the final cut, with the late Billy Omala and Khadija Ali on the interview panel. 

The station turned him down anyway: still a second-year student, the panel judged he could not carry both school and the job. 

Jacob Mogoa, who had auditioned alongside him and already hosted a health show called "Afya Bora" on KBC, offered Tuva fifteen minutes inside his own show instead. Mogoa picked him because Tuva knew health and fitness content, but Tuva used the borrowed minutes to play East African music between segments.

The break that mattered came through Vincent Ateya, a Citizen Radio presenter. When Citizen rebranded into a Swahili-language station, Ateya remembered hearing Tuva during those KBC recordings and recommended him for the relaunch. 

Citizen producer Gakenya Kabando called Tuva in for an interview. He showed up in what he later described as a cheap suit and met Waweru Mburu and Fred Afune, then a Royal Media Services programming executive. 

Tuva pitched his concept and was hired on the spot. 

His first time on air was unplanned: the regular afternoon presenter failed to show up, and Afune put an untrained Tuva on the slot. Tuva talked over the commercial breaks by mistake and expected to be fired. Afune told him the mistakes were part of learning the job and kept him on.

Mambo Mseto launched in 2007 and became the first Kenyan radio show built specifically around local and East African music. It reached number one within a short stretch and held the position for years. By 2012, the show had ruled the airwaves for five years and won Radio Show of the Year at the Coast Music Awards, where Tuva also took Male Presenter of the Year and a newly launched television spinoff, Mseto East Africa, was named TV Show of the Year in the same ceremony.

That television spinoff came from Tuva's own initiative. After Mambo Mseto's radio success, he approached Fred Afune with the idea of a music-themed TV show, and Afune and the company's managing director, Wachira Waruru, backed it.

Latifa Ngunjiri, another RMS executive, arranged the travel that let the production crew shoot across East Africa rather than confine the show to a Nairobi studio. 

The pilot was shot with gospel artist Rufftone, and the friendship between the two outlasted the episode. Mseto East Africa went on to air on Citizen TV with co-hosts Selly Kadot Amutabi and DJ Flash joining Tuva over the years that followed.

Tuva did not stop at two shows. Mseto Campus Tours and Mseto Mashinani took the Mambo Mseto brand out of the studio entirely, touring universities and counties with the artists the show had been promoting on air. Dancehall artist Dufla Dilligon is among the names who credit Tuva's platform for their early break.

Tuva also turned the brand into a registered business. 

He runs Mseto East Africa Ltd as CEO, and in 2018 launched the Mseto East Africa Awards, unveiled on June 22 at the Swiss Lenana Hotel in Nairobi under the Mseto East Africa Awards Trust, where Tuva sits as chairman and co-founder. 

The awards split nominees roughly 80 percent Kenyan and 20 percent from the rest of East Africa, mirroring the regional mix the TV show had run with since its first season.

Recognition followed the business growth. Tuva won Male Host of the Year at the Coast Music Awards on December 23, 2018, then traveled to Dallas, Texas, for the AFRIMA awards on October 26, 2019, where he won Best Radio and TV Presenter in Africa, the first time a Kenyan journalist had taken the category. 

In 2020, Tuva registered the Mzazi Foundation, a charity that sponsors needy students with ambitions in broadcasting. 

Two years later, the United Nations Development Programme named him a peace ambassador for his record of keeping his shows free of inflammatory content, and the Uwiano Platform for Peace gave him a parallel ambassadorial role ahead of the August 9, 2022 general election.

On February 9, 2026, Royal Media Services announced a station-wide presenter reshuffle across Radio Citizen, Hot96, Inooro FM and Mulembe FM. Mambo Mseto was passed to a new lineup of Qtee, Bensu and DJ Flash and Tuva was moved to a Waks Tikitaka, a show built around Sheng.

This story first appeared on episode one of Kenyan Founders, The History and Business Strategy of Royal Media Services